BUCHAREST BIENNALE 4. Handlung. On Producing Possibilities.
curated by Felix Vogel
May 21 - July 25
Venues: PAVILION UNICREDIT, Institute for Political Research, Paradis Garaj, Center for Visual Introspection, Geology Museum
Is there a difference between actions and stories? The German term Handlung serves not so much as a translation for both words, but much sooner it refers to the very semantic level. It is impossible to differentiate ‘actions’ from ’stories’, both meanings are intrinsically linked to each other and generate each other. It is exactly this ambiguity of Handlung that should be stressed here and be made productive. The 4th Bucharest Biennale suggests an experimental set-up to scrutinize different modes of action, possible courses and capabilities of action. It will try to examine various stories, interweaved plots, and fictions and how all this is bound to or detached from concepts of agency. How is agency proposed and what instructions for taking action are necessary or have to be developed? We will examine practices that criticize, rewrite, correct or queer established narratives as well as yet other forms that play with the set of conditions of constructing narrations and history. It will be about the appearing of things in the blinding bright light that shines out of the public realm. With this project, we will investigate how, who, and where these possibilities of action are produced, how one can intervene in common patterns and how other and new possibilities of Handlung can be generated. In a critical manner, the set-up of this project will be based on the urban and spatial organization of Bucharest with its different historical and political layers and thus trying to examine how urban structures and architecture act as agents to allow, interdict and produce Handlungen.
from left to right installation of: Claudia Cristovao, Andrea Geyer, Asa Sonjasdotter
from left to right installation of: Claudia Cristovao, Asa Sonjasdotter
from left to right installation of: Andrea Geyer, Emily Roysdon
from left to right installation of: Cabello/Carceller, Ion Grigorescu
from left to right installation of: Lan Tuazon, Charlotte Ginsborg
installation of Kalle Brolin
from left to right installation of: Nicoline van Harskam, Fereshteh Toosi, Ștefan Constantinescu, Alexander Kluge
installation of Lina Selander
from left to right installation of: Maryam Jafri, Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor, Martin Beck
from left to right installation of: Christine Meisner, Sabrina Gschwandtner
from left to right installation of: Goldin+Senneby, Asier Mendizabal
Comments Off
On 20th of May BUCHAREST BEINNALE 4 opened for the preview.
The day started with a press conference held by Razvan Ion and Eugen Radescu, co-directors of BB, Felix Vogel, curator of BB4, Renaud Thiers representing Pilsner Urquell and Anca Nuta representing UniCredit. The press conference was attended by more then 300 Romanian and international journalists and professionals.
Razvan Ion, Felix Vogel and Eugen Radescu
Comments Off
After three weeks of almost nonstop working, struggling with old electrical installations, dirty-old-falling-apart walls, huge queues in bricolage shops, traffic jams, heat, rain and demonstrations in front of the Government Palace, the team of BB4 finally managed to install the exhibition!!!
Few days before the opening, curator Felix Vogel organized a special guided tour of the exhibition for the volunteers of BB4.
Comments Off
On May 21, in the lecture hall of the National University of Arts, Felix Vogel moderated a talk aiming to explore the production of the concept and the responses of the artists.
Comments Off
From 20th of May to 30th of May, 13 students from the installation department and work.master, contemporary art practices, Haute ecole d’art et de design, HEAD Geneve, Switzerland, will join Bucharest and work on site specific interventions around the housing area of Rahova-Uranus. The idea is to produce singular views on what the term of „Handlung“, as Felix Vogel makes it accessible for his concept on the public sphere in Bucharest, can mean in terms of an ephemeral art production. Trop tot, trop tard | Too early, too late. Activating the present, now. is also asking about the conflict of being elsewhere than in the right place at the right time, of missed opportunities, and a possible change.
Participants: Sonia Kacem, Stephan Freivogel, Hadrien Rossier, Olga Kokcharova, Roxana Sima, Violetta Perra, Stéphanie Giorgis, Emeline Vitte, Ceel Mogami de Haas, Laurent Peter, Vincent de Roguin, Natalia Comandari, Florent Meng
The 13 different approaches – between installation, performance, writing, sound- and video art, as well as a conference – were presented to the public on May, 29th with a conference and a guided tour.
A project by:
Katharina Hohmann, professor at the Installation, Sculpture and Space department, accompanied by Laurent Schmid, professor at the work.master programme, both HEAD Genève in collaboration with Felix Vogel.
Comments Off
On 25th and 26th of June, in cooperation with the Swiss Institute for Art Research in Zurich (SIK-ISEA), Bucharest Biennale hosted an international conference on the “Biennale Principle”. The agenda addressed the genealogical aspects of Art Biennales by discussing the history of the Venice Biennale, as well as the present and future conditions of Art Biennales such as the Bucharest Biennale. The conference was based on the assumption that Art Biennales are foremostly Janus-faced. On one hand, they are part of the globalized art market and perpetuate its structures, rites and conventions - the homogenizing effect of Biennales. On the other hand, they often highlight local, regional or national idiosyncrasies - the heterogenizing effect of Biennales.
Speakers: Jorg Scheller, Felix Vogel, Beat Wyss, Zdenka Badovinac, Jan May, Ursula Zeller, Annika Hossain, Susann Oehler, Razvan Ion, Marcus Graf, Li Zhenhua, Natasha Becker.
Annika Hossain
Beat Wiss
Jan May
Jorg Scheller
Li Zhenhua
Marcus Graf
Natasha Becker
Susann Oehler
Ursulla Zeller
Zdenak Badovinac
Comments Off
